ENGIE Solutions Streamlines their High-Volume Proposal Process

ENGIE Solutions, the world leader in low-carbon energy services, has streamlined their process for the roughly 8,000 bids issued every year by their Regional Divisions. This has contributed to improved proposal quality and very good feedback from their clients.

Business outcomes:

• More professional sales pitches
• More relevant content retrieval
• Collaborative writing approach
• Improved bid quality & impact

Existing Solution Didn’t Meet their Needs

ENGIE Solutions faced several frustrating challenges that echo through the energy industry. A decentralized organization supported by an outdated tool.

“We had an in-house web solution that provided Word and PowerPoint offer masters by business line, content blocks and graphic offer templates. This solution had not been used for 2 years, as its updates depended on a single national administrator. What's more, as this solution offered rather limited content modularity, the offers were very long and lacked impact!” said Romain NOYERE, Operational Marketing Director

When Engie Solutions launched their call for tenders to support them in this area, their aim was to improve the quality of their proposals, in terms of both content and form.

• Content Discrepancies. “The analysis of the offers, carried out upstream, explicitly highlighted any discrepancies we might have had in the wording of our offers, and led us to think about new ways of writing."
• Out of Date Content. Engie Solutions envisioned a solution that encouraged more feedback information on content, to move them towards best practices.
• Duplicating Offers. They also envisioned more centralized, master content for greater consistency and accuracy across its regional divisions.  

“A Step Ahead of the Competition”

Following a call for tenders, Engie Solutions selected three candidates who would position them to deliver quality content more consistently across their decentralized offices. One solution stood out against the competition.

“Xait was chosen for its tool, which is a step ahead of the competition and perfectly suited to offers with high editorial content. We also particularly appreciated Xait's methodology and expertise in Proposal Management."

Today, they deliver more professional, quality bids their clients appreciate.

• Content Quality. “Feedback from customers and design offices has confirmed this: we've had very good feedback on our briefs, but we mustn't rest on our laurels."
• Accurate Content. “XaitProposal encourages them to feed back information on content...and to move towards best practices."
• Tailored Bids. “Sales reps no longer start from an old offer, but from a MCQ that enables them to call up content tailored to the customer's needs."

An “Easy to Use” Solution

XaitProposal’s smart document builder combines intuitive step-by-step questionnaires with your content library to deliver on-brand, high-impact bids. Ideal for decentralized teams who want to get more bids out the door without sacrificing quality.

“XaitProposal is a high-performance, scalable tool. It's up to date and accessible to all types of profiles. Its ergonomic design makes it easy to use, even if you need to be familiar with all its possibilities to get the most out of it."

• Approach. “The methodological approach, in addition to the tool, shows that Xait treats the problem as a whole."
• Ease of Use. “XaitProposal allows us to inject the company's strategy in terms of offer construction. In the structure, we sought to highlight the differentiating elements and essential arguments."
• Best Practices. “XaitProposal encourages them to feed back information on content...and to move towards best practices."
• Collaborative Approach. “One of the benefits of the tool is to structure this collaborative approach. For the moment, 2 masters have been set up: a business master and an administrative master for building application files, with others to follow."
• Document Editing. “As a bonus, XaitProposal can also be used to structure documents that are complementary to the sales offer. For example, it has been very useful for editing 80 specific sheets linked to a market."

Evidence of Improved Quality

Since implementing XaitProposal, ENGIE Solutions has centralized their bid writing approach and increased their focus on content quality.

As a result, they are delivering more professional, high-quality, tailored bids that solicit very good feedback from clients and design offices.

• Quality Bids. “The objective has been achieved: we're satisfied with the quality of our offerings."
• Client Satisfaction. “Feedback from customers and design offices has confirmed this: we've had very good feedback on our briefs."
• User Adoption. “As far as figures are concerned, 65% of our bids within the scope deployed are carried out using the solution. Since use of the tool is not compulsory, and since some of our offers cannot be addressed by XaitProposal, our initial objective was to reach around 70% of our issued offers. We can therefore consider this to have been achieved."
• Content is Prioritized. “The logic of structuring offers in 3 levels (chapter / sub-chapter / theme) "forces' us to prioritize content. Our teams have gained in Proposal Management expertise."

With XaitProposal, ENGIE Solutions has achieved their goals for improving the quality of their proposals, in terms of both content and form. This improved quality has brought consistency to their offers and clients are taking notice.  

That’s a good thing considering their high pace of growth in renewables.

About ENGIE Solutions

Engie Solutions is the world leader in low-carbon energy services. Together with their 97,000 employees, our customers, partners and stakeholders, they are committed to accelerating the transition towards a carbon-neutral world, through reduced energy consumption and more environmentally-friendly solutions. Inspired by their purpose (“raison d’être”), they reconcile economic performance with a positive impact on people and the planet, building on our key businesses (gas, renewable energy, services) to offer competitive solutions to their customers.

About Romain Noyere

Romain Noyere is Operational Marketing Director in the Marketing & Innovation Division at ENGIE Solutions. He has 15 years of experience serving the quality of B2B offers and the optimization of commercial responses. Service-based approach and continuous improvement in marketing and digital project management.